Underneath the mountain’s silent skies,
Where diverse nature remains and thrives,
My ancestry flows through the veins of time,
My roots expand beyond a pine,
Older than your written rhyme.
Before your maps were carved into stone,
Before your sails were even sown,
The push of wind through the blistering sea,
I remain still in freezing dignity.
Desperate swings of metal into thy,
Never once opposed my design,
They take, they greed,
Never to understand my necessity.
My glamorous branches touching the sky,
As the crusader ships drift on by,
They came to take only what could be seen,
But never stayed to witness me.
The explosions of artillery fill the sky,
I watch from above as all must die,
The casualties are immense, severe,
The loss unfolding my deepest fear.
My towering stature above all else,
I feel the sun like nothing may,
The wind whispers tails only thy knows,
Never to be revealed as the rivers flow.
You gaze upon me as a tree,
A symbol carved into a flag,
I am not bark, not wood,
I am evidence of where you once stood.
As the world arrived chaos ensued,
My scars deepened as you follow,
With deafening wars and hope deprived,
I felt the earth quake at the dawn of destruction,
Despite the onslaught I did not break.
I have seen your cities burn, I have seen your cities bleed,
The weight of sin felt through every leaf,
Your weapons can’t hide your intent,
Your greed known through the smallest hints,
The blood you spill stains the sand in the wind,
But cannot reach where I stand,
I am the watcher, I am a monarch of the ancient, steady and stern
From my roots the future will learn.
The heat grows as my resolve runs deep,
My very nature worn, but I keep
My home decays around my frame,
Certainty slipping away day by day.
My roots cling to the stubborn ground,
Scorched rays as snow melts away,
Day by day I weaken beneath its rule,
The soil cracks, dry and arid,
Yet my roots clutch to the bare ground.
Millennium of men rise and fall,
Their voices fade as I remain,
My branches sway in the whispering breeze,
A musical of patience as time ticks on by.
I have resisted your inferno and your sins,
Where shall I even begin?
The history of thou may survive, it’s true,
But I will endure longer than you.
Your empires will crumble, your superpowers will betray,
Yet my roots remain this day,
Through the nature of this earth I will stay,
I am your roots, I will not fall, I will be here at the end of it all.
